Thousands without power in one NC county following criminal occurrence, sheriff says
By Kari Barrows
Click here for updates on this story
MOORE COUNTY, North Carolina (WLOS) — Thousands of people are without power in one North Carolina county after a “criminal occurrence,” one sheriff says.
In a Facebook post late Saturday night, Dec. 3, Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said reports of mass power outages within the county were being investigated as an act of criminal vandalism.
The sheriff says just after 7 p.m. Saturday, several communities in the county began experiencing power outages.
“As utility companies began responding to the different substations, evidence was discovered that indicated that intentional vandalism had occurred at multiple sites,” the post said. The sheriff’s office did not yet elaborate on what exact type of vandalism occurred at the substations.
A tweet from Moore Public Safety reports power crews were working on the issue and urged people not to call 911 to report the outages as an emergency.
As of 12:15 p.m. Sunday, Duke Energy reported out of 47,018 total customers served in Moore County, 37,998 customers were without power at the time and 73 active outages were reported.
In a tweet Sunday morning, Governor Roy Cooper said he had spoken to Duke Energy and law enforcement officials about the matter.
The Moore County Sheriff’s Office plans to hold a press conference on the matter at 4 p.m. Sunday.
“Anyone with any information about this act of violence should contact the Moore County Sheriff’s Office at 910-947-2931,” the sheriff’s office said in a release.
Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
